


Making It Official

by moonmoth (greyvvardenfell)



Series: Fictober 2019 [29]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:13:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23572171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyvvardenfell/pseuds/moonmoth
Summary: Julian makes a big decision... that he really made a long time ago.
Relationships: Apprentice/Julian Devorak
Series: Fictober 2019 [29]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1696495
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15





	Making It Official

**Author's Note:**

> For the Fictober prompt: "I never knew it could be this way."

Reyja’s breathing rocked him like the sea, her fingers stroking steadily through his hair to pull each auburn curl out to its full length before letting it spring back into shape. Warmth from her belly radiated through his chest and neck, his forehead pressed into the triangle of soft flesh between her ribs. The room was dark, quiet now that their cries of pleasure had echoed away into afterglow bliss. Julian tightened his arms around her, gasping for one more lungful of air before another wave of happiness overwhelmed him.

“You okay, lovely? That was a big sigh.” For a moment, Reyja’s voice was his world, vibrating through her body beneath him. Reluctantly, Julian lifted his head from the safety of her stomach and smiled, buying himself time to collect his thoughts into words.

“Yes, darling, I’m okay.” He paused. A weight of anticipation grew in the silence, fed by each quick breath he drew. Reyja let the lock of hair wrapped around her finger fall and traced down the sides of his face, cupping his chin in her broad hands for a moment as if to lend him her strength to continue.

“What’s on your mind?” she asked gently, drawing one of her thumbs across his bottom lip. “You’ve been thoughtful tonight. I’ll listen if you want to talk, good or bad.”

Slowly, Julian covered her hand and meshed his fingers with hers, then pulled himself into a kneel, straddling her thighs. “It’s good, my love. It’s all so good, I don’t know what to do with myself.” He kissed her palm and dropped their joined hands into her lap, rubbing pops and cracks from her knuckles absentmindedly. “I… I never knew it could be this way.”

“Knew what could be this way?”

“Anything.” He chuckled, not meeting her gaze. “Everything. This, with you. I never knew I could have this.”

Reyja said nothing but kept a careful eye on him, watching for his tells in the milky moonlight that filtered through the window.

“If someone had sat me down when I was planning my return to Vesuvia, and, and told me what awaited me at the end of it all: a home, my name cleared, Pasha back in my life… even if they’d just said that much, I would’ve considered it more than I deserved.” Julian hunched his shoulders, focusing hard on Reyja’s hand. “But if they had told me about you? How smart, how strong, how interesting, how beautiful you are, and how you… how—” His voice broke and he shuddered as a sob scratched its way out of his throat. Reyja pulled her hand free of his and wrapped her arms around him, guiding him to rest against her chest once more.

“It’s okay, Juley, it’s okay. You’re okay,” she murmured.

“You’re too good to me.” His reply was muffled, thick and choked from the tears spilling down his cheeks.

“There’s no such thing.”

Julian buried himself in her shoulder, clinging tightly to her until he could speak clearly again. When he sat up, face puffy and red, his mouth was twisted in embarrassment. “I’m so sorry, my dear. This, erm, this isn’t how I meant for this conversation to go.”

Reyja cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, love…” He swallowed, took a deep breath, and locked eyes with her. “Everything I ever did, mistake and, ah, otherwise, led me to you. I never knew my life could be like this because, before you, it couldn’t have been. And, well, I suppose what I’m saying is, ahhh…” Even in the moonlight, Reyja could see the blush that rolled down his chest. “I can’t imagine living without you.”

He reached for her hand again, cradling it in both of his.

“I don’t have a ring yet, but, hah, believe me. This isn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision. I’ve thought of little else for, for ages. Months.” Julian lifted her fingers to his lips and pressed a gentle kiss where a ring might sit. “Since the Hanged Man brought me back.”

“That long?” Reyja could barely speak, the air knocked from her lungs by the swell of her heart.

“At least. Longer, even. Maybe since that very first night we spent together, when you took such…" He faltered and laughed shakily, stroking the tendons in her wrist. “Such tender care of me, soothing me back to sleep from what would have been just another nightmare. We got a second chance to be together, my dearest, and my god, I love you with everything I have, everything I am. I give it all to you, if you’ll have me.”

With tears of her own welling in her eyes, Reyja nodded fiercely. “Of course I will, if you’ll have me too.”

Julian flashed a brilliant smile, full of hope and certainty. “It would be my honor and my privilege to care for a heart as beautiful as yours.”

She laughed, a small sound choked by tears, and fell into him, hugging tight. Julian kissed her softly, then again, mussing her hair with his long fingers. Pulling back, Reyja rested her elbows on his shoulders and looked at him with hooded eyes even as she continued to sniffle.

“What is it, darling?”

“Well, technically you haven’t asked me anything official yet.”

He gave an exaggerated gasp and threw off the covers. “How terribly remiss of me! Forgetful old Julian, leaving out the most important part of a proposal.” With a wink, he sank to one knee next to the bed. A single tear dripped down his cheek, forced out of his once-plagued eye by his rakish overacting. He wiped it away with a grin. “Reyja North, love of my life, the person who has already made me the happiest man ever to draw breath in any realm, will you marry me?”


End file.
